Vodafone CEO urges fight against demand side of cable theft

The CEO of Vodafone Ghana, Yolanda Cuba, is urging the Ministry of Trade and Industry to intensify its supervisory role in reducing cable theft in the country.

Madam Cuba believes the continuous demand for such products will make it difficult to halt the illegality if the laws are not enforced.

“We have gone to the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI), seeking a way that we can actually deal with the issue of copper theft in a more proactive way and right now they have actually cooperated very well with us,” she stated.

Ms. Yolanda added, “Together with MOTI, we are currently inspecting all the copper that gets exported out of Ghana and looking for our copper so that we actually deal with this issue from the financing or the commercialization of the stolen copper.”

Cable theft continues to dominate as one of the challenges facing telecommunication companies despite several interventions to reduce its impact.

The issue has also affected customer satisfaction rankings of the telecommunication companies as the effect are more pronounced on data services than on mobile telephony services.

The industry is said to be losing some 5 million US Dollars to cable theft.

For instance, the Corporate Relations Manager at Vodafone, Ebenezer Amankwah has also stated that the company loses about 1.8 million cedis every year to cable theft.

This comes despite recent arrests made over the matter.

Commenting on the development in an interview with Citi Business News, the CEO of Vodafone, Yolanda Cuba was also confident the trend will change for customers to enjoy uninterrupted services.

“Basically if we try and kill the market that is actually there for copper outside the country then it makes it easier for us to actually contain the issue,” she explained.